The Reading Machine

I have a friend who is blind; she comes to my “English Books Library”. How does she read these books? Easy, She has a reading machine.
I had once read in Time magazine, as a teen, that reading machines could be set to read in a variety of “voices”. The first time this lady came to the library, and explained that she had a “reading machine”, I was glad to know about it, and remembering the article, asked her which voice she had chosen, perhaps “Perfect Paul”?
“How did you know?!??” ( Ahh, nice to be considered intelligent and on the ball….)

This morning she paid the “Library” (My “library” consisting of only some 24 shelves of books, plus an additional 3 shelves on “special needs”.) a visit. She mentioned how much she enjoys listening to taped lectures (of Rabbis), much more than hearing it from a book with “Perfect Paul”. Because “Perfect Paul” is not human. He is a machine. And no matter how well he is programmed, he just can not give the same inflection to his speech as a human can.
So for all of our slowness, our forgetfulness, and our inaccuracies, we are still that notch—a human notch--- above machine.
So I , for one, will try and use my voice wisely and not carelessly today….

A Long-Ago Trip to the Galilee

Sometime soon Ricki’s class at school will be having their big yearly trip, this time to the Galilee area. Ricki’s aid can’t go, so I will have to fill in for her. Thinking about this today reminded me about a trip I took some 30 years ago. Our “seminary” school had a trip to the Galilee. One of my classmates, “Chaya”, was blind. When we got out of the busses, the “guide” looked at Chaya and started mumbling something about Chaya not being able to go; it might be dangerous. After asking a few questions, I realized that his fear was misplaced (he was seeing “blind”, not “Chaya”). I took responsibility for her. I had read a fair amount about blindness, and knew how to guide and describe things to someone with visual impairment. And, indeed we had absolutely no problems. In fact, the only one in our class who DIDN’T wet her feet crossing a certain pool by rock “stepping stones” was Chaya. The class united in insuring that. I am glad that we had “Chaya”, not “blind” as a classmate.